Man arrested for shooting pregnant girlfriend

Published
8:00 pm EDT, Tuesday, April 15, 2008

A man accused of shooting his pregnant girlfriend in front of their two children told police the gun went off accidentally during an argument about her alleged drug use and his history as a sex offender, according to a police report.

Alfredo Ferrer told investigators he got so angry during the fight that he believed "the devil is in me" and tried to hit Amanda Realie with his .38-caliber revolver, according to the report released Tuesday. But he said Realie swung at the gun and it went off.

Police responded to the Bidwell Tavern parking lot in Coventry in the late afternoon on a report of a blood-spattered man threatening to kill himself while holding his 2-year-old son. Police said Ferrer put the gun in his mouth at one point.

Authorities said Ferrer, 43, told them during a standoff that he shot his girlfriend at their apartment near the restaurant. Officers said they eventually subdued him with a stun gun, and the child was taken to a hospital but appeared unharmed.

Realie, 27, was flown by helicopter to Hartford Hospital, where she was listed in critical condition Tuesday.

Ferrer sobbed but said nothing Tuesday as he was arraigned on attempted murder and other charges in Rockville Superior Court. He did not enter a plea and is due to return to court April 25. His public defender declined comment.

Judge Carl Schuman ordered him held on $1.25 million bond, citing his criminal record.

Court officials said Ferrer was convicted in the 1980s of sexually assaulting a minor, then escaped from prison in 1991 and remained a fugitive until he was arrested for marijuana possession in New York in 2002.

Witnesses said the ordeal at Bidwell Tavern began when a bloody Ferrer showed up just before 6 p.m. and tried to use the phone. Frightened patrons were herded into a basement and the doors were locked once Ferrer left.

Court officials said Ferrer had worked as a dishwasher at the tavern for several years. Employees there declined comment Tuesday.

According to the police report, Ferrer told investigators that he and Realie got into a fight about 4 p.m. over her use of heroin. He said he then went to the Bidwell and asked his boss for the night off.

Ferrer said he went back to the apartment and became angry when Realie called him a sex offender. He said he went into his bedroom and smashed all of his religious statues.

"Look at what you made me do," Ferrer told Realie, according to the police report. "The devil is in me."

Ferrer then picked up their 2-year-old son and got a gun out of his bedroom, police said. He approached Realie and cocked the revolver's hammer and she tried to run out of the apartment, the report said.

Ferrer told police that he tried to hit Realie in the face with the weapon, but she swung at the gun and it fired into her face. He said Realie then dropped to the floor, falling face-first into a garbage bag next to the door.

Their older son, whose age was unknown, screamed after his mother was shot, Ferrer told police.

The situation drew police from Willimantic and the University of Connecticut as well as the state police SWAT team. Coventry is a small town about 20 miles east of Hartford, not far from the main UConn campus.

Ferrer is charged with attempted murder, assault, assault of a pregnant person, risk of injury to minors, reckless endangerment and several firearms charges, authorities said.